Rica Week 3

Hi!

Time is passing so fast and slow at the same time. Kind of the same way it has since the day I left. It´s surprising how long ago some things were, yet it feels like I´ve been out here a lot longer than three weeks. I actually did think of some things that would be nice to have in this package. Maybe if you run into any of my friends who want to write me but don´t want to figure out how to send foreign mail, you could tell them they can throw a letter in with the package! That reminds me, I hear that the DearElders just print off at the mission office, so it´s still just as free to send them! Anyway, I´ve been thinking about how much I would love to have a couple books of Sudokus to do at night. It´s a weird craving I´ve been having. I would love some chocolate, but it might melt in the whole process, so I dunno! Anything to help teach people play the piano would be so marvelous though. Thanks so much! Yeah the Heinz can drop it off at the mission office if they want. Or if they´re somehow in San Jose on a Monday I can go pick it up from them haha. Tell them thanks a bunch!

I experienced my first earthquake a few nights ago. It basically wasn´t one though. Elder Baca was just suddenly like ´´Whoa. the bed is shaking.´´ It wasn´t even that noticeable though. My feet have taken a bit of a hit this week. I think I had the beginnings of an ingrown toenail, but I was able to rescue it before it got bad. Now I have some fungus though, so that´s fun! It´s just the result of some foolish sandal habits, and I´m taking care of it. W---r... Oh, W---r... So these members had let him stay at their house the night before we found him an apartment. We talked to them a few days later, and apparently they were super nice and made him some food, but he was like ´What is this? I don´t want it.´ Then he was talking on his phone and walking in and out of the house all night. The wife said she doesn´t even believe he´s a private investigator. He told them he has 14 kids. He told us he has 5. Plus the family said they thought he had a gun. We started to think he might have just been progressing because he knew he could find some help with money and somewhere to stay. The night before his baptism, we told him we probably couldn´t do it the next day. He said that was fine. That was our last sign that he doesn´t actually care, so we´re trying to figure out what to do about all of that.

It hasn´t rained much this week. Usually when it does, though, it rains really hard for a few hours, then nothing. I still haven´t seen any cool wildlife really, haha. I held an iguana the other day! But that´s about it. We for sure get our best investigators through member referrals. A lot of people here are nice on the streets and stuff and say you can come by, but then they´re really hard to track down at their house and become really disinterested. We had 7 investigators at church this week. The church is pretty small. It´s actually two buildings. There´s the chapel building, which is maybe just a little bigger than the section with the benches in our church, and then there´s a building right next to it with classrooms and the baptismal font. There´s an outdoor basketball/soccer court/parking lot behind the buildings.

I heard a rumor that we´re eating dinner on Thanksgiving and Christmas as a whole mission! No idea if there´s anything to it though. Thanks for the thought, Dad! It was humorous, but also made a super good point. We cannot put off what the Lord has asked us to do. Definitely applies to missionary work hardcore. Glad you guys are truckin´along with LOST! Keep it up if you like it, but don´t force yourselves haha. I haven´t had any super touching, strikingly huge experiences yet. There are just little things every day that inspire me. I´ll be sure to tell you about another investigator next week. I´ll have to decide throughout the week so I don´t waste time telling you about someone else who only falls through at the end and ends up being a psycho stalker moocher. Love you all! I´m going to try to send a couple pictures from the hike.

--Elder Hampton

Here's where Jake and Elder Baca went on a hike one P-Day 

As Jake describes, this is a "weird building thing" they saw on their hike.